Should Wedding Party In Viral YouTube Video Get A Cut Of Music Sale Profits?

from the questions,-questions... dept

Yesterday, we had the story of the incredibly popular viral wedding video, talking about how the music in that video, despite being over a year old and being sung by someone with massive reputation problems (Chris Brown, who assaulted his then girlfriend), was suddenly back in both the iTunes and Amazon top 5 downloads, almost entirely because of the video. Soon after the post went up, we saw that Google had just put up its own post highlighting it as a case study of a copyright holder monetizing an opportunity. Basically, Google allowed Sony Music to:

claim and monetize the song, as well as to start running Click-to-Buy links over the video, giving viewers the opportunity to purchase the music track on Amazon and iTunes. As a result, the rights holders were able to capitalize on the massive wave of popularity generated by "JK Wedding Entrance Dance" -- in the last week, searches for "Chris Brown Forever" on YouTube have skyrocketed, making it one of the most popular queries on the site.

But... as some in our comments began to wonder, shouldn't the folks in the video (or, perhaps the person who shot it) get some of that monetizing as well? After all, if we base our thinking on traditional RIAA-style thinking, the whole reason why there are suddenly so many new sales and renewed interest in Brown and this song is entirely due to this wedding party and whoever shot the video. Now, they might not want or care about the money, but just the fact that Google is hyping up the monetizing of the video... doesn't something seem wrong that the actual copyright holder of the video in question isn't getting any of that money? At the very least, shouldn't there be some sort of "referral bonus" or some such?

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Oh Look, Viral Video On YouTube Boosting Sales... And Reputation For Chris Brown

from the take-it-down! dept

By now, you've probably seen the video of the wedding party entrance for the wedding of Jill Peterson and Kevin Heinz (if not, go check it out). It's been seen by many millions of people, and the number just keeps on growing. The wedding party entrance is choreographed as the entire wedding party dances enthusiastically to Chris Brown's song Forever. The video, of course is almost certainly copyright infringement. Even if we assume that the church in St. Paul where this took place paid its public performance license, that would only cover the venue, not the eventual rebroadcast on YouTube. Now there are some who will insist that every streamed version of this song should require that a fee be paid. But, of course, if that were the case, this video almost certainly would not have been put on YouTube and would not have been seen by so many millions of people.

And what would have happened then?

Well, JohnForDummies notes that the success of this video is having a major impact for Chris Brown (who's reputation is, reasonably, in tatters for assaulting his then girlfriend, the singer Rihanna). Not that we advocate supporting someone who assaulted his girlfriend, but the video is having an impact. The song Forever has jumped into the iTunes top 10, despite having been released over a year ago. Also, the video itself has greatly outpaced an attempt by Brown to create a viral video "apologizing" for his actions.

It's not clear how the record label (in this case, a subsidiary of Sony Music) feels about this (see update below) -- though, I will note that embedding has been disabled on the video (Update: Embedding enabled again, so I'm adding the video below) and there is a link to buy the song on the YouTube page. At the very least, this suggests that Sony (which has a good relationship with YouTube, unlike some others...) worked out a deal to take advantage of the publicity around the video. Though, the disabling of embedding seems rather pointless. Embedding the video would likely guarantee far more views, and with it, more purchases.

Update: Thanks to a bunch of folks sending in the news that Google is now promoting this as a case study of a rights holder taking control over content.

Update: Embedding has been re-enabled, so here you go:

Also... there's already been an amazing spoof video of the couple's "divorce" proceedings: I don't think Sony's "taken control" of this one yet...

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YouTube, Warner Music Spat Killing Viral Videos

from the that'll-help dept

The ongoing spat between Warner Music and YouTube over music licensing payments has already been pissing off both musicians and consumers. But apparently now it's gone too far. People are up in arms that the ongoing "silentification" of music in videos has destroyed a popular viral video involving (seriously) a cat playing a piano. There simply is no logical argument for claiming that leaving this video alone harms the music industry in any way. No one is using this video as a substitute for the music in question -- and, if anything, it helps make more people aware of the music. But, thanks to Warner insisting that any and all value comes from Warner and Warner alone -- and anyone must pay for the privilege of promoting its music... fewer people now get to hear the song and enjoy a silly viral video.

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Ad Watchdog Says Ad Videos (Viral Or Not) Need To Obey Truth-In-Advertising Rules

from the what-about-satire? dept

A few months ago, you may recall that there was a semi-popular "viral"video going around, showing a group of friends sitting around a table with mobile phones. They put the phones in the middle of a table surrounding a corn kernel, and then dialed the phones and watched the corn pop. This got some buzz, and a quick debate over whether or not it was real. It seemed rather obviously fake (and, in many ways, similar to another fake video from earlier about cooking an egg with mobile phones), but some people were tricked. About a week after the video became popular, a bluetooth headset manufacturer admitted to creating the video to try to sell more handsfree kits.

Now, the National Advertising Division (NAD) of the Council of Better Business Bureaus has slapped the company on the wrist, noting that even though it was just an online viral video PR stunt, such videos should still live up to various "truth-in-advertising" standards. The LA Times story on this gets the details wrong, suggesting that it was only when this report came out that it was revealed that the video came from a bluetooth handset maker. That's not the case, as the company admitted it was a viral video about a week after it became famous.

Still, while I understand the reasoning for why truth-in-advertising should apply to viral videos, I'm not entirely convinced it makes sense in this case, where the video itself wasn't an actual advertisement -- and the only time people discovered that it was an advertisement was in conjunction with the revelation that it was a hoax. While perhaps some people were fooled initially into believing the video was real, it's difficult to see that video alone (which didn't mention hands free kits) driving people to using hands free kits. If anything, someone who believe the video would probably just use their phone less entirely, rather than switching to a hands-free kit. I definitely believe truth-in-advertising rules make sense, but it's not entirely clear how this was false advertising, rather than a hoax to generate discussion.

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Understanding The Backlash Cost In Copying Someone Else's Work

from the thinking-things-through dept

Earlier this month, we wrote about a neat marketing campaign put on by the Eepy Bird guys using tons of Post-It Notes. It wasn't clear if 3M, the makers of Post-It Notes was actually involved or not -- but it appears the company is busy at work on its own viral marketing campaign, though it's off to a poor start. As a bunch of folks have sent in, 3M apparently decided to make make its own car covered in Post-It Notes photo after the company failed to license the original photo that was made famous a few years ago.

Now, I find the people who claim that 3M was "stealing" the concept just as (if not more) silly as those who claim that downloading an unauthorized song is "stealing." 3M tried to license the photo and couldn't agree on a price, so it made its own. It didn't "steal" the idea, it just found it more cost effective to do it on its own (the classic buy vs. build decision). However, it does appear that the company didn't take the backlash cost into account in figuring out that buy vs. build equation.

This is actually quite important. Often, when we talk about things like plagiarism or copyright infringement, people insist that others will always "rip you off" and copy your work and there's absolutely no recourse. Yet, they fail to acknowledge the importance of reputation. If you are caught so uncreatively copying someone else, without doing anything new or innovative on top of that, it's not surprising that people will call you out, often vehemently, for your uncreative copying efforts. That can have quite a big cost in terms of reputation and credibility, probably a lot more than it would have cost to have reached an agreement with the original creator. So, before thinking it's so easy for big companies flat out "rip off" someone else's creative work, just remember that there are some pretty serious hidden reputation costs in them doing so.

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